January/February 2026 Limerick Laughs Winner and Runners-up

The others are skating with ease.
They all make it look like a breeze.
I wouldn’t be bad
If only I had
Some skates on my hands and my knees.

Congratulations to Gwen Lenker of Santa Rosa, California, who won $25 for this limerick based on Ice Skating on Pond, John Falter’s Post cover from January 26, 1952.

If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our upcoming issue, submit your limerick via our online entry form.

Here are some of our other favorite limericks from this contest, in no particular order:

A blustering braggart named Vigo
Took flight with a cry of “Here we go!”
Now the bruising you’ll find
On his throbbing behind
Is nothing compared to his ego.
—Gennadiy Gurariy, Athens, Ohio

They probably should have thought twice,
But logic can be imprecise.
Their confidence crumbled
When he who had tumbled
Exclaimed, “There are cracks in the ice!”
—Jeanne Kaufman, Boulder, Colorado

Surrounded by skaters so fleet
Kept him thinking that skating was neat.
Although he would fall,
They would cheer, one and all,
Every second he stayed on his feet.
—Justin O’Connor, Leeds, Massachusetts

When a skater he flirts with ignores
One determined young suitor named Thors,
He thinks, “I’ll score dates
With my cool figure eights!”
But instead he ends up on all fours.
—Sjaan VandenBroeder, Stockton, California

’Twas the challenge that he had been dreading
On the slippery pond he was treading,
When his confident mates
Said, “Let’s try figure eights,”
Oh, how he wished he was sledding.
—Ginger Dehlinger, Bend, Oregon

In skating, or so I’ve been told,
I’m something one has to behold.
Though I’m prone to fall down,
I got fame and renown
In Milan, when I went for the gold.
—Rudy Landesman, New York City, New York

Young Max skates with style and pace.
In fact he is quite the young ace.
His friends hope that Max’ll
Perform a full axel,
But he keeps falling down on his face.
—Bob Turvey, Stoke Bishop, Bristol, United Kingdom

The winter has left the lake frozen,
So dozens of skaters have chosen
To take to the ice
Without thinking twice —
Until the ice breaks and one goes in.
—Tracey Ann Webb, Freiburg, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany

On the ice-covered pond where I glide,
I get jostled and elbowed aside
’Cause my speed and my whirls
Are admired by  girls,
And that’s something the boys can’t abide.
—Mark L. Levinson, Herzliya Town, Israel